After reading the textbook and listening to this lecture students should be able to:
1. Understand and appreciate the reasons for the limits on criminal law and criminal punishment in the U.S. constitutional democracy.
2. Understand the principle of legality and the importance of its relationship to the limits of criminal law and punishment.
3. Appreciate the nature and importance of retroactive criminal law making.
4. Know the criteria for identifying vague laws and understand and appreciate their constitutional significance and consequences.
5. Understand and appreciate the rights defendants enjoy in criminal proceedings, the burden they have to support their affirmative defenses, and the requirement of the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
6. Know, understand, and appreciate the limits placed on criminal law and criminal punishment by the specific provisions in the Bill of Rights.
7. Understand and appreciate the constitutional significance and consequences of the principle of proportionality in criminal punishment and its relation to “cruel and unusual punishment.”
8. Understand the importance of the right to trial by jury in the process of sentencing convicted offenders.
13 сен 2024
